The Mark of Bail

The Mark of Bail is a proposal to prevent future financial crises by imposing a retroactive financial punishment on the individuals that caused our most recent (current) crisis.

The idea is simple. Capitalism is a profit and loss system. The individuals that caused the financial crisis earned a disproportionate amount of wealth by inflating a global debt bubble. The same individuals were shielded from losses when the bubble burst and transferred those toxic assets to the US Taxpayer.

I call these individuals Publicans and believe that to have a vibrant and prosperous society, we must restore the losses by clawing back some of the Publicans’ gains.

But such a policy would have to be astoundingly simple to succeed. Our lawmakers, and the lawyers and lobbyists that serve the industries that own them, thrive on complexity. In complexity our politicians find the campaign contributions that get them through the next election cycle. In complexity the lawyers and lobbyists find billable hours and backroom deals. In complexity the largest corporations with the most influence find the regulations and loopholes that allow them to stifle competition and strengthen market positions.

The Mark of Bail is a very simple set of rules that can be applied indiscriminately to any individual - in any company or any industry - to estimate an appropriate financial punishment for their contribution to the financial crisis. Unlike the recent Dodd-Frank legislation which is thousands of pages and accomplishes nothing, the Mark of Bail could be written in less than four pages.

It needs help though. What should the formula’s parameters be? Which companies should be targeted? How could we get the politicians to put something like this in place? How would we even get started?